If Paul Bunyan Were A Design Lover... Best Made Company Axes.

Best Made Co. makes hand painted and polished functional but beautiful 30" hickory helve axes with a 3.5 lb fine grain steel bit. Each tool is lovingly hand crafted and painted with contemporary patterns and colors. Best Made Co. is the only company in the world that offers axes in small, limited edition quantities and they back this up with a certificate of authenticity, an edition number, and a hand-engraved mark on every axe they sell. Prices start at $250.00 and delivery times vary since each is made to order in their New Jersey workshop.

Even if you're no lumberjack and have never wielded an axe or felled a tree, these would be beautiful hanging on the wall. And if you're a hopeless Urbanite, you can prove to your friends, you actually know what one uses to chop wood.


above: The handles in their New Jersey workshop await a coat of varnish

Their 2009 Summer Collection:



Their 2009 Spring Collection:





There are 2 options for packaging, wool felt bag or wooden boxes:


above: Wool felted bag available in navy and orange only.

above: Made from quality ply, balanced, felt lined with brass latch and handle. Come in various sizes, custom built to house your collection.

Shop for the axes here.



About Best Made Co.
Best Made Co. was founded by designer and author Peter Buchanan-Smith, and outdoorsman and environmental entrepreneur Graeme Cameron. The two met at a legendary boys camp in Northern Ontario, Canada where they learned—with love and respect—to wield an axe.

As men they have both gone on to forge their own way in the world: building hand-hewn log cabins on the shores of Stoney Lake, tree planting in Kapuskasing, winning Grammy awards, getting married, having children, brief flirtations with military life, book publishing, Scotland, rugby, whiskey, slingshots and hardwood fires that can melt glass (launched from aforementioned slingshots). In 2009 they teamed up to pursue their life-long dream of a world devoted to axes, and all that axes should represent.

AXE PHOTOGRAPHY
In addition to selling the hardware, Best Made Co. is also selling and showing "Axe Art", limited edition silver gelatin photo prints by photographer Adrian Gaut.

The images were taken at Trask River, Pacific Coast Range, Oregon in July 2009. Each is an edition of 10, measures 11" x 14" and is a gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper. Price is $300.00 per print:


above: "The Wood Pile", by Adrian Gaut

above: "The Nurse Log", by Adrian Gaut

above: "Old growth sitka spruce", by Adrian Gaut

above: "On The Shop Floor", by Adiran Gaut
buy the photos here

I'm Certain God Won't Put Him In A Corner: RIP Patrick Swayze

Patrick Swayze, 1952-2009

Patrick Swayze gallantly fought pancreatic cancer, and lasted longer than most who are diagnosed with such, but he finally lost the battle at the far too young age of 57. Diagnosed in January of 2008, after a long and brave fight, he passed away Monday evening with his devoted wife, Lisa Neimi, at his side.

Wear Your Dream House On Your Finger. The Villa de Reve Collection from Philippe Tournaire.

Villa de Reve Collection from Philippe Tournaire
Inspired by the first known architectural rings discovered during the Merovingian age (500 to 752 AD), French jeweler Philippe Tournaire has created a collection of mini architectural bejeweled and gold wearable masterpieces in the form of rings and cufflinks.

Start Limbering Up Those Fingers: Here's 100 Paper Animals To Fold!

click on the above image to enlarge and get a good look at the images.




Love origami? Love Animals? Have fidgity kids? Or just really bored yourself? Then try folding these rasterized peramodels from Japan.



Raspera, which requires a payment via paypal for membership, provides you with downloadable and printable pdfs of over 100 photo realistic paper crafts in the form of animals and birds.




They have varying degrees of difficulty and all types of species. And each stands up on it's own:






Raspera members fee is $30.00 USD.or here (Application by letter). Then, they send you the password via e-mail, which will not only work for all current Rasperas, but also any future Rasperas.

Monster & Animal Hands By Designer Hector Serrano

Designer Hector Serrano's Monster and Animal Hands are temporary tattoos for children that turn their hands into adorable little monsters or animals. Sold as set of 8 monsters or 8 animals, they are safe and simple to apply (just use with water). Instructions included. Box size 130 x 110 x 18mm.

The artwork is really beautiful.

Take a look:

The Animals:




The Monsters:




Buy either here.

via freshbump via Dezeen via Hector Serrano

Meat And Greet: Business Cards Printed On Beef.

What better way to make a lasting impression than to give someone your pertinent information on a piece of seared, lasered dried beef? At least that's what artists Christopher Thomas and John Young thought when coming up with the disgusting yet equally compelling idea of meatcards, business cards on beef jerky.



The two clearly have a wonderful sense of humor in addition to the know how to come up with something this novel.

The description of the process on their site is infused with humor and because they have just recently introduced this protein-laden product, they ran a challenge whose winners would each receive a prototyped card.

The Challenge? Recreate one of 3 Frank Frazetta images with actual live people (I told you they had a good sense of humor). The contest entries were almost good enough to warrant their own blog post. Below is one winning example:


To see the 15 challenge winners (yes, the contest is over), go here.

The successful prototyping occurred May 6th as Chris and John used Original Flavor Giant Slab Jerky from Tillamook, Oregon. The winners were named and will receive their Alpha tested cards.

Now all they need to do is figure out some way to vacuum seal them and voila! ...your name in game:


above: They tested them using Giant Slab Beef Jerky from Werner Gourmet Meat Snacks in Tillamook, Oregon. Flavor: Old Fashion

Below are photos of the protyping process:

above: Chris getting set up at the laser table. These are two 150-watt laser tables. Chris uses Corel Draw to do the image setup.



above: Each piece of jerky is about 4" wide by 11" long.


above: The laser table is like a big inkjet printer, except of course it has a laser in lieu of ink cartridges. The laser itself is in a big cartridge at the back of the table; a mirror bounces it sideways, and then another mirror bounces the beam down onto the material.


above: Chris holding the successfully-lased jerky.


above: chris photographing the jerky


above: The final product is surprisingly legible, and no doubt, tasty.



MeatCards.com To learn when the meatcards will actually become available for purchase, follow them on twitter @meatcards  

special thanks to John Young for the photos of the process

Inky Dinky's Spookily Cool Halloween Countdown Calendar

above: Detail of John Littleboy's illustrated Halloween calendar.


Inky-dinky introduces something wickedly clever for one of our favorite holidays: A Halloween Countdown Calendar.

Open the paper gates of the cemetery and step into a darkly droll world of stylish and sinister characters strolling the moonlit grounds of a graveyard.

For each day in October, open a die-cut window and read a story about this macabre cast of the recently deceased.

The calendar measures 12 x 16 unfolded and can be wall mounted or sit up on your table top as a decorative Halloween tableau.

When closed:

When open:

No longer available.

Inky Dinky features the beautifully illustrated products of John Littleboy.

See the work of John Littleboy here.